Wesizwe Platinum, which owns the Bakubung mine in the North West, is scrambling to contain a cyberattack on its operations, which exposed its finance, legal, procurement and human resources functions, including personal information.
The company said on Tuesday that its IT systems were breached on Monday, and investigations to establish where the attack came from were under way.
“We would like to assure stakeholders that Wesizwe is taking the necessary measures to ensure that this situation is contained and remediated. In order to restore the reliability of its information systems, Wesizwe has shut down its systems and the internet to avoid further damage,” it said.
“The matter has been reported to the SA Police Service Cyber Crimes division and the company is engaging with our IM service providers to investigate the extent of the impact and possible recovery solutions. Wesizwe is also engaging cybersecurity and forensic experts to work with its capable in-house IT team to manage the situation and assist with development of additional controls to avoid a reoccurrence,” the company said.
“Plans are being put in place to revert to manual communication means in order to ensure business continuity. Further steps to be taken include the notification of the Information Regulator (SA) and co-operation with all relevant authorities as required. Wesizwe will communicate with all relevant stakeholders and suppliers to provide them alternative means of communication with Wesizwe while we recover and secure our systems.”
SA ranks 14th for the highest average in insurance claims associated with data breaches and cybercrime, and this is all but certain to get worse as cybercriminals harness artificial intelligence (AI), according to a report by Allianz Commercial.
The report by the corporate and speciality unit of global financial services group Allianz indicates that insurance claims involving cybercrime have risen in the past year, due largely to an increase in data and privacy breaches.
Cybercrime has hit the SA government and public institutions. An international ransomware group recently claimed responsibility for a crippling attack on the SA Health Laboratory Service, blocking patients’ lab results and compromising sensitive patient and government employee data. The department of public works and infrastructure has lost at least R300m due to cybertheft in the past 10 years.
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